| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| How Beijing is ruthlessly amassing the world's biggest DNA database |
| 2024-11-06 |
| [Daily Mail, where America gets its news] … much of it harvested from millions in the West The head of GCHQ, Britain’s signals intelligence agency, has warned that synthetic biology and genetics, alongside artificial intelligence, are technologies in which China is seeking to dominate in order to gain control of ‘the global operating system’. Compare that to Beijing’s great ally Vladimir Putin, who has waxed lyrical about the prospect of creating a Russian soldier ‘who can fight without fear, compassion, regret or pain’. With few of the ethical constraints that govern genomic research in the West, China has made the greatest strides towards that terrifying goal. In September, the US House of Representatives was sufficiently worried about national security to pass the Biosecure Act to restrict business with the BGI Group, which manages China’s National Gene Bank on behalf of the government, as well as several other Chinese biotech companies. BGI pioneered an advanced genetic sequencing system, which is being promoted worldwide as a medical tool. Called ‘Huo-Yan’, or ‘Fire Eye’ in English, the name derives from the story of a mythical Chinese monkey king with the capacity to see through disguises to spot imposters in the royal palace. ‘Fire eyes can see the essence of everything,’ says the company’s website. The US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence has warned that the system may be ‘a global collection mechanism for Chinese government genetic databases, providing China with greater raw numbers and diversity of human genome samples as well as access to sensitive personal information about key individuals around the world.’ BGI has worked with the Chinese army on at least 12 research projects that include efforts to improve ‘population quality’ and on genetic research to combat hearing loss and altitude sickness in soldiers, according to a review of research, patent filings and other documents obtained by the Reuters news agency. When it comes to gaining an economic or military edge, the size and diversity of genetic data is crucial – which is why harvesting it beyond China is so important to the CCP. For example, BGI produces a best-selling prenatal Non-Invasive Fetal Trisomy (or Nifty) test, which involves the analysis of blood samples and can cost as much as £500 in fertility clinics. The test is used by millions of pregnant women globally and was reportedly developed in collaboration with the Chinese military. It is one of the world’s top-selling non-invasive tests to detect abnormalities such as Down’s Syndrome, and is sold in at least 52 countries, including the UK, raising fears that the data is being transferred to China for possible military research. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |